Madagascar is one of the poorest countries in the world, with more than 70 percent of the population living on less than 1.90 dollars a day. The Social Safety Net (SSN) project has three components: a conditional cash transfer, a productive safety net program, and an emergency cash transfer program in the drought.
... Exibir mais + In 2015, the World Bank started working with ideas, a leading research and policy think tank specializing in behavioral studies and founded by leading academics in the field of behavioral economics. The aim was to introduce behavioral interventions in the spiraling implementation of cash transfer programs. The SSN project in Madagascar was chosen to design and test nudges what would further enhance desired human development and productive inclusion outcomes.
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The purpose of the brief Urban Water and Sanitation in Tanzania: Remaining Challenges to Providing Safe, Reliable and Affordable Services for All is to outline the ways in which the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framing of water and sanitation is helping us to understand not previously seen problems with urban services.
... Exibir mais + For water services we see a reduction in the gap in access to improved and piped supply between rich and poor since 2005, with overall coverage currently standing at 85 in 2016. However, the low reliability of supply leads to a dependence on more expensive, informal service providers as a secondary source. This dependence can hit the poor hardest. In contrast, for sanitation we see a persistent and widening gap between rich and poor in improved access with a high proportion of shared facilities. Furthermore, as the SDG standards point out, lack of safe treatment and disposal of fecal matter can lead to a greater risk of contaminated water being ingested by the population, increasing the likelihood of waterborne disease such as cholera. Tanzania's cities, have experienced frequent outbreaks of cholera, with 4,985 cases reported in 2017.
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Although efforts at soil and water conservation are routinely viewed as instrumental in reducing vulnerability to climate change, their impact has rarely been quantified.
... Exibir mais + Combining data on the timing and intensity of soil and water conservation interventions in select Ethiopian watersheds from 2009 to 2016 with a pixel-level panel of vegetative cover and soil moisture data derived from satellite imagery makes it possible to assess the biophysical impacts of such measures using a difference-in-differences specification. The results point toward significant effects overall that vary by season, and that tree planting and other soil and water conservation activities are more effective on degraded than cultivated land. The results are consistent with before-after regressions for daily sediment load and stream flows in a subset of micro-watersheds. It thus appears that satellite imagery can improve the design and near-real-time monitoring of sustainable land management interventions for watersheds and landscape.
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This study uses text mining techniques on almost 900 presidential "state-of-the-union"--type speeches from 10 Latin American countries from 1819 to 2016.
... Exibir mais + The paper documents a sharp increase in recent decades in references to poverty and inequality. The study's long-term view shows that the way in which poverty and inequality are discussed has been changing. Using a Latent Dirichlet Allocation algorithm, the paper shows that in recent years poverty has been increasingly discussed as a broader multidimensional challenge that requires a variety of social programs. Inequality has been increasingly framed as an issue of equal opportunities, whereas previously there was a greater focus on social justice. The paper assesses whether the prevalence of poverty and inequality in presidential speeches correlates with measures such as social public spending, as well as the poverty and inequality levels of the country. It finds that during the 2000s, the countries that discussed poverty and inequality at greater length were also the ones that increased social spending and reduced poverty and inequality the most.
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Bangladesh is known globally for its considerable success in reducing poverty and advancing development. With a vibrant economy that has grown at more than 6 percent per year in the last decade, Bangladesh reduced extreme poverty to 13.8 percent in 2016 from 44.2 percent in 1991 (based on the international 1.90 dollars per capita per day poverty line).
... Exibir mais + It crossed the World Bank's threshold for lower middle-income country status in FY14. The country now aspires to become a middle income country by its fiftieth anniversary in 2021. The World Bank Group remains a committed partner in this journey. The World Bank Group's (WBG) 2016-2020 Country Partnership Framework (CPF) supports Bangladesh to achieve its vision of middle income country status by 2021. The framework is anchored in the government's seventh Five-Year Plan. It is focused on helping Bangladesh overcome barriers to higher growth as well as create more, better, and inclusive jobs, a key priority for the country.
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evaluation that aims to measure the causal impact of a large-scale rural water supply and services program (PROSASR) in Nicaragua. The overall objective of the evaluation is to assess the causal impact of the provision of technical assistance packages on improvements in the functionality and durability of water systems in rural Nicaraguan communities.
... Exibir mais + Prior to the implementation of the intervention, baseline data were gathered to assess the current levels of functionality and durability of water supply and sanitation (WSS) services, organizational structure and preparedness of WSS system providers, and rural communities and households served by rural water systems. Baseline results suggest that randomized program assignment at the community level resulted in balanced characteristics between treatment and control groups. In a secondary exploratory analysis, community, household, and system indicators were used to identify key determinants of the sustainability of rural water systems. These results will help determine the roadmap for constructing a consistent follow-up survey (2018) to conclude the evaluation and obtain practical policy and program recommendations to improve the program's effectiveness.
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This paper reviews methods that have been employed to estimate poverty in contexts where household consumption data are unavailable or missing.
... Exibir mais + These contexts range from completely missing and partially missing consumption data in cross-sectional household surveys, to missing panel household data. The paper focuses on methods that aim to compare trends and dynamic patterns of poverty outcomes over time. It presents the various methods under a common framework, with pedagogical discussion on the intuition. Empirical illustrations are provided using several rounds of household survey data from Vietnam. Furthermore, the paper provides a practical guide with detailed instructions on computer programs that can be used to implement the reviewed techniques.
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The development objectives of the Fourth Poverty Reduction Support Development Policy Operation Project for Liberia are to: (i) strengthen governance with particular emphasis on transparency and accountability as well as budget execution and oversight; (ii) address key constraints to growth, including electricity; and (iii) improve human capital development particularly through improved access to education and health.
... Exibir mais + The three main pillars of this operation are: (i) governance and civil service reforms; (ii) economic transformation; and (iii) human capital development. development. Within these three pillars, the series selectively support reforms that directly or indirectly address the issues of fragility and conflict, namely improving transparency in key aspects of government operation; increasing accountability in the management of public assets and reducing opportunity for corruption; building capacity for equitable service delivery; and enhancing inclusive growth and employment opportunities. This operation is the fourth in a programmatic series of four poverty reduction support development policy operations (PRSDPO) to support the implementation of the government’s medium-term poverty reduction strategy agenda for transformation (AfT) and its long-term vision plan Liberia Rising 2030.
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The development objective of the Second Poverty Alleviation Fund Project for South Asia is to improve living conditions, livelihoods, and empowerment among the rural poor, with particular attention to groups that have traditionally been excluded by reasons of gender, ethnicity, caste, and location.
... Exibir mais + The restructuring will: (i) reallocate the proceeds of the financing between categories; (ii) increase the proportion of co-financing from 25 percent to 75 percent for the earthquake-related activities under component A.2, component B.2, component D1; (iii) based on the assessment as described in the section I and on change of percentage of expenditures financed, the cost for each component was reviewed and revised (section IV); and (iv) based on the revised component costs, and on the agreement with International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the reallocation of the funds between categories was presented (section IV).
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Following decades of sustained economic growth during which Uganda made dramatic progresstowards poverty reduction, the country has recently experienced a period of economic growthslow down.
... Exibir mais + To return to higher rates of economic growth and poverty reduction, the Government mustaddress fundamental constraints. Facing a range of internal and external shocks, Uganda's economy has grown at the average annual rate of 4.5 percent over the past five years, far lower than the historical average of about 7.8 percent. The recent deceleration in growth affected all sectors of the economy. With these lower growth rates, combined with other external shocks to the households, the remarkable progress that Uganda had made towards reducing poverty since 1992 has been reversed. In the period from 1992 to 2013, the national poverty rate declined from 56 percent to 19.7 percent. Since then, it has rebounded, increasing to a preliminary 27 percent. For Uganda to again achieve higher rates of economic growth and poverty reduction, it must address two fundamental factors: its low levels of productivity and the vulnerability if its people to poverty.
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The assessment jointly conducted by the Ministry of Planning and Finance and the World Bank produced two reports. The first report, Part One (MOPF and WB, 2017a), put forward trends in poverty over time using the two poverty estimation methodologies previously used in Myanmar.
... Exibir mais + The first report also made the recommendation to revise and rebase the poverty methodology to reflect the needs of the poor using data from the MPLCS in 2015. Updates to a country's welfare aggregate and poverty line are recommended approximately every ten years to reflect changes in living conditions that occur as a country gets richer (such as a shift in the basket of goods from food to non-food goods) and to reflect changes in survey and poverty estimation methodology.
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The Toolkit provides a practical, “how-to” guide for selection and adaptation of child development measurements for use in low- and middle-income countries.
... Exibir mais + Users can follow the proposed step-by-step process to select, adapt, implement, and analyze early childhood development data for diverse purposes and projects. Researchers, evaluators, and program personnel from various disciplines interested in assessing early childhood development in low- and middle-income countries will find the book useful for planning and evaluating interventions, monitoring development over time, or conducting a situation analysis. The book updates and expands a previous 2009 edition, incorporating new research on the use of child development measurement tools in low- and middle-income countries.The ECD Measurement Inventory that accompanies this Toolkit contains 147 measurement tools for children under 8 years. For each test it reports the domains assessed, age range for which the tool is appropriate, method of administration, purpose of the assessment, origin and locations of use, logistics, and cost.
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This report presents findings from a joint analysis of poverty and living conditions in 2015, conducted by the Ministry of Planning and Finance and the World Bank Group.
... Exibir mais + The report draws upon the Myanmar Poverty and Living Conditions Survey (MPLCS), fielded in early 2015. Part one of the assessment reviews poverty trends based on previous poverty measurement methodologies used in Myanmar and recommends that the method for measuring poverty is revised to reflect standards of living in 2015. Part two presents the poverty trend and profile based on a new poverty measure.
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A joint analysis of poverty and living standards was conducted by a technical team from the Ministry of Planning and Finance, Government of Myanmar, and the Poverty and Equity Global Practice of the World Bank.
... Exibir mais + Poverty has previously been estimated using data from the Integrated Household Living Conditions Survey conducted in 2004/05 and 2009/10. Using this earlier data, poverty in Myanmar has been estimated using two different approaches. Poverty was initially measured by the Government of Myanmar and its development partners using data from IHLCA-I ("MNPED et al (2007)" methodology); this first measure of poverty based the poverty line and estimate in the living conditions of 2004/05. Poverty was estimated to be 32.1 percent in 2004/05 and was estimated to have dropped to 25.6 percent in 2009/10 (MNPED et al, 2007 and MNPED et al, 2011). A poverty estimate based on 2009/10 standards of living was put forward by the World Bank in 2014 ("World Bank (2014)" methodology), using data from the IHLCA-II. The World Bank estimated poverty to be 37.5 percent in 2009/10 (World Bank, 2014).
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Do World Bank policy loans that are focused on social policy reform help improve social policies and institutions in borrower countries? To help answer this question, this paper provides new empirical evidence of the association between World Bank policy lending and measures of the quality of borrower countries' social policies and institutions that such lending supports.
... Exibir mais + Results from estimating a two-stage least squares model indicate that the World Bank's policy lending has a significantly positive effect on the quality of social policies and institutions. The analysis also finds tentative evidence that loan conditions related to social protection and environmental sustainability are more effective in influencing social policies and institutions than those related to equity of public resource use and health and education. In general, the findings are confirmed when estimating a model with a lagged variable of interest. The results suggest that the right kind of conditionality can help improve social policies, therefore providing an important lever for reaching the twin goals of ending extreme poverty and stimulating shared prosperity.
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This document presents the systematic country diagnostic (SCD) for Niger. It identifies the constraints and opportunities for achieving the twin goals of ending poverty and improving shared prosperity by 2030 in a sustainable manner while acknowledging: (a) the need for selectivity, and (b) the need to identify constraints that can feasibly be addressed.
... Exibir mais + The objectives of the World Bank are closely associated with those of the Government of Niger, which aims in its renaissance program, to achieve rapid poverty reduction by 2035. To put Niger on a sustainable path of poverty reduction, a change in trajectory is needed urgently. Though poverty reduced over the past decade, much of it can be attributed to favorable external conditions which no longer exist.
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The core purpose of this document is to assess the development effectiveness of the World Bank Group country program in Mexico between FY2008 and FY2017.
... Exibir mais + While Mexico has been a member of the OECD since 1994, its per capita GNI is the lowest among OECD members – 58 percent below the OECD average in 2016, in PPP terms – and its poverty rate is the highest in that group of mostly high income countries. Compared to upper middle income countries (UMICs), however, Mexico’s per capita GNI is 7 percent above the average of that group. Its latest, 2014 poverty rate, 5.7 percent, is comparatively low, measured using the international poverty line of $1.9 in 2011 PPP terms, but it is much higher, at 11.7 and 27.5 percent, if measured at poverty lines of $2.5 and $4, respectively (2005 PPP). The Government of Mexico’s strategic priorities have been focused on unlocking the country’s full potential, in terms not only of economic growth, but also of improved human development, gender equity, environmental protection and enhanced democratic governance and security. Over the period of analysis, the WBG aligned its strategic priorities with those embedded in the National Development Plans of two successive presidential administrations. The CPE will assess the WBG’s contributions to Mexico’s achievements in each of the Group’s priority areas of engagement. It will also evaluate the extent to which the WBG took advantage of potential synergies between the financial, knowledge and convening services that WBG institutions offered across its various engagement areas, to maximize overall contributions to Mexico’s national development goals.
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Microfinance is generally seen as a way to fix credit markets and unleash the productive capacities of poor people who are dependent on self-employment.
... Exibir mais + The microfinance sector has grown quickly since the 1990s, paving the way for other forms of social enterprise and social investment. But recent evidence shows only modest average impacts on customers, generating a backlash against microfinance. This paper reconsiders the claims about microfinance, highlighting the diversity in evidence on impacts and the important (but limited) role of subsidies. The paper concludes by describing an evolution of thinking: from microfinance as narrowly construed entrepreneurial finance toward microfinance as broadly construed household finance. In this vision, microfinance yields benefits by providing liquidity for a wide range of needs rather than solely by boosting business income.
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This study assesses the redistributive impact of fiscal policy––and its individual elements––in Zambia. Zambia's 2015 fiscal policy reduces inequality; the largest reduction is created by in-kind public service expenditures on education.
... Exibir mais + However, fiscal policy also increases poverty in three ways: (1) there is a relatively low level of targeted, direct-transfer spending; (2) energy subsidies, which do not reach many poor households, absorb a large share of expenditures; and (3) tax instruments create a burden greater than what is received as direct or indirect benefits from subsidies or direct transfers. The number of poor and vulnerable individuals who experience net cash subtractions from their incomes is greater than the number of poor and vulnerable individuals who experience net additions. Eliminating subsidy spending while compensating poor households would help fiscal policy achieve poverty reduction and even greater inequality reduction. If subsidies on fuel, electricity, and agricultural inputs were eliminated without any compensatory mechanism, such as an increase in the Social Cash Transfer program's coverage and benefit levels, the impact of fiscal policy on poverty would likely be muted. In 2015, Zambia exempted over 80 percent of the average household's consumption basket. However, value-added tax exemptions imply only that some portion of value-added is not taxed, and so do not entirely eliminate a value-added tax burden. A more efficient way to deliver net benefits to poor and vulnerable households is through targeted cash transfers at a scale large enough to compensate for the burden created across households by value-added tax and other indirect taxes.
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